Thunder Record Similar to End of 2021, But Continue to Look Better as Season Goes Forward

Oklahoma City hasn’t played a game in the new year, and will have plenty of chances to make a move into the Western Conference standings.

However a top five-10 pick still lies in the cards for the young team coming off a blowout loss to the 76ers.

The Thunder finished the 2022 section of the season with a 15-21 record through 36 games. The team currently sits in 12th in the west.

The Thunder are 2.5 games out of the play-in tournament, but also just five games ahead of the last place Rockets.

Compared to last season overall, the 2022-23 campaign appears to be going better in terms of how the team ranks in offense and defensive statistics and how they are competing in games with the top teams in the league.

However, OKC is just two wins ahead of pace to where the team ended 2021 a year ago. The Thunder sat at 13-21 at the end of 2021 and ended the year with a 90-85 win over the Knicks.

While OKC may be just two games above the team's pace last season, overall the team continues to be on their pace to continue to push their rebuild along.

The offense continues to improve as individual shooters and scorers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is on pace to have by far his best season of his career while pushing the top of the league in scoring.

Josh Giddey continues to develop more of a shot with off-season fixes.

The rest of the OKC roster continues to work on continued production offensively especially from 3-point range.We The defense ranks in the top 10 of the league and continues to show improvement throughout the roster individually.

Last season, Mark Daigneualt was still instilling his play style into the team while the roster was patched together and dealt with injuries throughout.

This season Daigneult’s fast, transition speed-based style is in full effect and the team is finding ways to be competitive with even the best teams in the league. On average OKC is losing games by 8.4 points per loss this season.

With 46 games left to play and one of the tougher schedules remaining, the Thunder still have time to show continued improvement. Despite the similar record the numbers have improved from 2021 as OKC continues to grow into themselves with the youngest roster in the league.

Want to join the discussion? Like SI Thunder on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest Thunder news. You can also meet the team behind the coverage.